Torchwood
by o0bubbleso0oOo
Summary: What would you do if you had been offered the job of a lifetime but couldn't tell anybody about the terrific, and sometimes terrorising, things that you encounted? That's what happened to Sammy Jones. When she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, everything about her life changed.
1. Weevil by Chanel

**Weevil by Chanel**

Dragging myself out of my bed, I groaned as my head pounded with a killer headache. As I began fumbling around in the dark for my clothes, I refused to open my eyes until it was vitally essential. Stumbling out of my room and down the stairs, I whined a little as the light in the hallway battled with my eyes. By the time I reached the bottom step, mum was already onto my case - standing in the lounge doorway with her eyes scouring disappointingly at me. I glanced at her before making my way into the kitchen. Grabbing the orange juice out of my younger brother's hands, I downed the whole thing before looking around the room in search for another drink to guzzle on. After consuming most of the liquid in the kitchen, apart from the cleaning detergents, I slumped down at the breakfast bar opposite my brother.

"Mum, Sammy stole my drink!"

"Do you have to shout?" I asked, bowing my head in my hands as mum walked into the kitchen.

Mum tutted as she handed me a mug of coffee. "Why do you always get yourself in such a state that you can't cope with life the next day?" mum asked. "Kieran, hurry up and have breakfast. I'll drop you off at school if you're ready in time."

I looked up at her, squinting as the light blared in through the kitchen window and straight at my face. "I don't even know why I'm like this - I didn't even drink anything."

"Yeah right, Sammy," mum laughed, lacking pity. "I know what you're like - a meal with the girls always turns into a competition for who can get drunk the most in the quickest time."

"But it wasn't like that," I argued, confused as to what did happen. "I can't remember anything that happened last night. Or yesterday for that matter."

* * *

_Last night._

Strutting through Cardiff city centre in heels and dresses of varying length, it felt so good to be reunited with the girls. I had just recently qualified as a trainee doctor and began to work at the city hospital. Since graduating from uni, none of us had the chance to meet up so when we did manage to meet up with one another, we cherished every moment.

"You will not believe who is pregnant!" Stacey announced. "Kerry Smith!"

"Who would screw that?" Nicola joked as we walked down the street towards the Italian restaurant. "I mean, she's a lovely lass but by God, get under that and you've not got much chance of surviving."

"Can you believe it?" I paused. "We're all growing up - getting careers, getting married, having kids. Life is flying by and we have no control over time."

"Did you guys see that?" Jess asked.

"See what?" I asked, confused as to what she was referring to.

"It was like some sort of beast - some sort of.. alien?" Everyone laughed at Jess' remark. "None of you believe me, do you?"

All the other girls replied with a chorus of 'no', but instead, I looked at her. Her face was serious - she wasn't joking about this at all. "Come on, Jess," I smiled, putting my arm around her waist. "Lets get you a pizza. You look like you could do with some good Italian food."

I didn't know what to believe these days. With my field of work, you hear so many stories of 'alien attacks', but our superiors just tell us that the patients are delusional so we should just make humour of it all.

Sat around the table in the restaurant, everyone was having their own little conversations about how their lives were going.

"So Sammy, how's the love life?" Michelle asked.

I sniggered. "Love life? Next joke."

Separate conversations carried on, filling the table with noise. Sipping on my wine, I couldn't help but still get a bit suspicious over what Jess said earlier. Aliens? Aliens in Cardiff? It sounded absurd - comical in fact - but I couldn't help question whether it was possible.

Jess stood up and squeezed her way past the chairs.

"Wait up," I smiled, standing up and following her out.

Walking away from the table, Jess looked at me and sighed. "They don't believe me, do they?"

I shook my head.

"Do you believe me?"

I looked at her and then looked down the corridor in search of the bathrooms.

"Sammy?"

"I believe you."

Walking into the bathrooms, we were interrupted with a loud scream coming from one of the cubicles.

"Hello?" I called out.

After no reply, I knocked on the door of the cubicle that was locked close.

"Is anybody in there?" I asked, knocking again.

"Sammy, what's going on?" Jess questioned, standing behind me.

"Hello?" I knocked for the final time but after getting no response, I turned back to Jess. "Look after this." I handed my bag to her as she looked on, confused as to what was going on.

Walking into the cubicle beside the locked one, I kicked my heels off and stood on the toilet. Peering into the closed cubicle over the separating wall, I found in even more confusion. There wasn't anything in there, yet the door was locked.

"Sammy!" Jess screamed from outside the cubicle.

Rushing out, I was met by a fierce creature. One I hadn't seen before, not even on movies. It was stood in front of me, towering above my 5"7 build. Dressing in some sort of PVC blue boiler suit, its skin on its face was all shrivelled up and it was baring its fang-like-teeth at me as it had Jess's body in its grip.

"Sammy, help me," Jess cried in terror - her eyes fixed on me with a wide stare.

"Don't panic," I said to Jess, trying to reassure her - and myself. "Just keep calm."

"Sammy," she whaled.

"Let her fucking go," I shouted at the beast, trying to find something in the bathroom that would allow me to distract the creature as I saved Jess.

Grabbing the soap dispenser from the wall, I hurled it at the creature's head, making sure I didn't hit Jess in the process. As the dispenser bounced off the creature's head, making a 'boink' noise as it did so, it threw Jess across the room. She hit the wall and fell to the floor instantly. Her body was lying on the ground in a motionless heap. I looked at Jess and then back at the creature that had managed to barricade its way into the cleaner's cupboard at the far end of the bathroom stalls. As it knocked all the cleaning products and toilet rolls off the shelf, I ran up to the door and locked it, subsequently locking it in the cupboard. It continued to bang on the door as I ran back over to where Jess was still laying, not making any movement.

"Jess," I whispered as I checked for all signs of consciousness but she was completely out of it.

Before I had chance to do anything, the door to the bathrooms flung wide open and in walked a group of four people. "Weevil?" the man in front of his entourage asked me before they split up in different directions.

I looked up in confusion, trying to work out what was going on. One of the other men made his way towards Jess and placed two fingers on her neck.

"What do you think you are doing?" I asked, fighting his hand away from Jess' neck.

"Trying to find a pulse?" he laughed as if I was supposed to know why a group of strangers had barged their way into the girl's bathrooms after some creature had just attacked my best friend.

"Leave that. I can do it. I'm a doctor," I argued.

"I'm a doctor too."

"Well, I think I'd rather me treat my best friend than some stranger that doesn't even look like he's a paramedic, let alone a qualified doctor."

"Look, I don't mean to be a dick but in the time that we've spent arguing over who's gonna treat this girl, I could have treated her. So do you mind just shutting up for about five seconds so I can see what's going on?" the man asked.

Defeated, I shuffled back and let him get on with that he was supposed to be doing. I looked over at the cleaner's cupboard to see the guy in the coat aiming what looked like a deodorant spray at the door as his female assistant prepared to unlock the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you," I exclaimed. "It's not human. I don't know what it is but it certainly isn't human."

"Weevil," the guy in the coat smiled to me, before resuming his original pose.

"Deodorant won't solve it. It's not body odour," I replied.

"This isn't deodorant. This is anti-weevil spray. Although, it could be used as deodorant.. I've never thought of that. Could be useful in the case of a weevil breakout.." The guy in the coat turned around to look at me and flashed a smile. "Thanks for the idea."

"On the count of five. One, two, three, four.." the woman paused as she slowly began to unlock the door to the cleaner's cupboard, where the creature was still barging around, causing all sorts of bangs. "Five."

The door flung open and the guy in the coat sprayed the "anti-weevil" spray at the creature. The beast then slowly began to fall to the ground, whimpering as the spray surrounded him.

"Gotcha," the woman smiled, leaning down to pick up a roll of toilet tissue that had managed to find its way out of the cleaner's cupboard and throwing it back into the cupboard.

"Shouldn't we tidy up the cupboard? Make it look like nothing happened here?" another man, wearing a suit, asked.

"Ianto, that is a cleaner's cupboard. A cleaner cleans."

Another woman walked into the bathroom, carrying a little handheld computer device in her hand. "By the looks of the tracking system, that's the last one."

"Good job, guys," the guy in the coat smiled to his team as he bent down and grabbed the creature's hands and locked them together in some makeshift handcuffs. "Back to the SUV we go."

"Hold on a sec," the so called doctor paused as I turned back around to see him examining the cuts on Jess' arms. "She's been attacked. I need to take her back to the hub. Make sure she's not been infected with anything."

I looked at him. "The hub? Who are you people?"

"The less you know, the better it is," the guy in the coat explained as he began to bring the creature towards the main door. "SUV."

The team of people followed him out of the door, leaving me sat in the middle of the bathrooms floor, looking at Jess as the doctor picked her up in his arms. What had just gone on? Who were all these people? What had happened to Jess? What was that bang in the toilets for? What was 'the hub'? What was I going to tell everyone back at the table?

The doctor guy carried Jess out of the bathrooms.

"Are you coming or what?" he called, obviously for my benefit.

Reluctantly, I stood up and made my way out of the bathrooms. As I did, Nicola was making her way into the bathrooms.

"Where you off?" she asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"Jess managed to slip over on some soap on the floor and banged her head on the soap dispenser so I'm gonna take her to the hospital to get her checked out - just to make sure she's okay," I lied, impressing myself with how quick I could think of a cover up story.

"Okay," Nicola smiled, blatantly falling for my lie. "Give us a text when you're done at the hospital."

"Will do." Before I had chance to reply with anything else, the doctor from before appeared at the end of the corridor. "I'd better go. Taxis here. I'll see you tomorrow, hopefully."

Running down the corridor, I caught up with the doctor guy.

"So what's your friend's name?" he asked as we walked out the fire exit of the restaurant without anyone noticing.

"Jess," I paused. "Jess Hodgson."

"And yours?"

"Sammy Jones."

"Well, Sammy. Nice to meet you."

He held out his hand for me to shake but I looked at his hand and then back up at him. "What is going on? Who are you lot?"

"I'm Doctor Owen Harper," he replied, withdrawing his hand and itching his shoulder, as if he didn't even have his hand out for me to hold in the first place. "That thing in there was a Weevil - an alien that lives in the sewers of Cardiff, only sometimes they manage to surface and it's our job to track them down so they don't harm anybody."

"But they hurt my friend?"

"She'll be fine. She's in good hands."

I shrugged my shoulders. "So who are you guys? The police? The army? The government?"

He laughed. "None of them."

"Well, who are you then?"

"Get in."

Before I had a reply, Owen shoved me into a car's open door and I fell onto a seat. Jess, who was now conscious, was sitting beside me, talking to the guy in the coat from before, who had taken up residence in the front passenger's seat. Owen closed the car door, leaving the car in darkness, apart from the odd blue flashing light from all the computer devices welded to the interior and the streetlight shining in through the front view window.

"This is Sammy Jones and her friend, Jess Hodgson."

"Sammy, my name is Captain Jack Harkness - but you can just call me Jack. I'm the leader of Torchwood Three and it is a pleasure to meet you," the guy in the coat said, introducing himself as he turned around to smile at me with his pearly white teeth.

"Torchwood?" I asked.

"Outside the government," Jack began.

"Beyond the police," the other people in the car, minus me and Jess, chorused in unison before Jack had the chance to finish his sentence.

"But what do you want with us?" Jess asked, holding onto her cut arm. "I don't get it. Why us?"

"Because you are the only people to encounter a weevil without us being there and managed to survive."

I gulped.

"Why did we survive then?" Jess asked. "What did it want in an Italian restaurant anyway?"

"Mushroom risotto is my guess," Jack smiled. I didn't know whether he was joking or being serious because from going by the last few minutes, his facial response was the same for both sarcasm and seriousness.

Ianto began to drive the car, or 'SUV' as they called it, down the back alleys of Cardiff.

"I'm Gwen," a woman sat behind us smiled in a strong Welsh accent, leaning over the seats to introduce herself to me and Jess. "And that's Toshiko with the computers."

"Why are you telling us this stuff?" I asked. "I mean, I am right by thinking that we're not supposed to know you exist, right?"

"Right," Owen replied. "But for some reason, the weevil didn't want to kill you two when he had chance to kill you and we wanna know why."

"Exactly," Jack nodded, turning back around to look at us. "You two are very lucky to be alive."

* * *

Walking across the paved area beside Millenium Centre, I looked around in confusion - why were we brought here? Owen, Gwen, Toshiko and Ianto had all disappeared off, leaving me and Jess under Jack's supervision. We walked down towards Cardiff Bay and towards a little wooden shack that was built beneath the bay. This couldn't be the hub they were taking about, could it? It was tiny.

Jack led us through the door and into a little office that resembled the headquarters for a tiny taxi firm, not an agency that supposedly dealt with aliens. Walking through another door, we found ourselves in a long, concrete chamber-like corridor. Jack didn't let us have enough time to look around as we hurried along the corridor, following after him, our heels clonking on the floor as we did so. After entering a lift, I looked at Jess, who looked back at me in the same confusion - where the hell were they taking us?

Without any warning, the lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal a little room with a huge cog in front of us. As it rolled to the side, Jack swiftly walked through the door and through another caged door that flung open seconds before he walked through it. We followed him in and was mesmerised by what we saw. However, my attention was drawn to a human hand that was stood up right in a glass container of purple illuminated liquid on a table beside the entrance. Some steps at the other side of the entrance led up to an area of computers where Toshiko was tapping away at the keyboard, completely ignoring everything else in the room. Jack led us up the stairs and past the computer monitors.

"Jess, you go down there with Doctor Owen Harper and he'll sort you right out," Jack smiled. "Sammy, come with me to my office."

I was reluctant to leave her but Jack insisted I accompanied him to his office. I watched Jess disappear down some more steps into a sort of basement operating theatre, where Owen was sat on a stool, looking right back up at me with a mysterious glare.

"This place is," I paused, trying to think of the right adjective to use to describe it. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was beyond my wildest dreams. "It's huge."

"Things don't always look as big as they really are at first glance," Jack slyly smiled to me, insinuating a second meaning to his comment but I completely ignored it and continued to look around.

We walked past another desk that was surrounded with computer monitors, similar to the one that Toshiko was working at and then walked through glass doors into a private office. The decor of this office didn't seem to fit the rest of the place; outside had a futuristic feel, yet the office seemed like it had been transported from the 1940s. The only thing out of the place with the 1940s feel was a computer that stood in the far corner.

"So Sammy," Jack said as he sat down on the chair behind the desk. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a student doctor," I replied, fighting the urge to address him as 'sir' - for some reason, I felt as if I was in high school detention with the head teacher.

"And your friend; what about her?"

"Jess works in a beauty salon," I paused. "But we did go to the same high school."

"Interesting. Which high school was this?"

"Green Road High in London. I was born in Cardiff but then lived with my dad in London until I moved back to Cardiff to live with my mum for university with Jess but Jess dropped out after the first year."

"What were you studying?" he asked, looking as if he was concentrating on trying to puzzle the pieces together.

"Medicine."

"Hmm," Jack paused. "I don't suppose you've ever encountered a weevil before, have you?"

I shook my head.

"Anyway, drink?" Jack asked, pulling a bottle of scotch from the drawer in his desk.

"Sure," I smiled. I didn't really like scotch - it was a drink my grandfather always used to have at Christmas, but after the night I had experienced, I could sure do with some alcohol. Jack handed me a glass of scotch and watched me down the glass in one, smiling as I did so. "Thanks," I said, putting the empty glass back down on the desk.

* * *

_Today._

Feeling around in my bag from last night for my phone, I groaned as I saw a text from Nicola, expecting it to be the low down on what happened last night. My past criteria for a night out where I couldn't remember a thing the next day usually consisted of: number one, pulling some guy; number two, needing the girls to save me from going home with the guy I pulled - or in some cases, another guy, and in some even rarer cases, both guys at the same time; number three, projectile vomiting in the bathroom of some club; number four, crying over some ex-boyfriend at 4am in a bar; number five, getting a lift home by police for attempting to pole dance on a street light whilst singing children's nursery rhymes as I walked home.

_"Hope Jess is okay this morning. I've got a few hours free at lunchtime. Didn't really get to talk to you much last night so wanna meet up for a coffee? Don't worry if you're busy - we can rain check. Nic x"_

I saw one word - 'coffee' - and automatically replied with yes. Dragging myself back up the stairs and into my room, I sighed as I flicked through my wardrobe in search of something to wear today and realised that my younger sister had managed to steal my favourite shirt while I was asleep. I would not be ever seeing that again. That was one of the down points of living back at home with your mum, your step-dad and your half-brother and half-sister — Isobelle and Kieran. Isobelle was seventeen years old and was a nightmare for stealing all my clothes. Mum told me that the only solution for the problem was for me to gain weight so we weren't the same clothes size anymore - typical.

* * *

Walking along the high street towards the coffee shop where I arranged to meet Nicola, I felt grateful as the summer sun lit up Cardiff: it made a change to the usual drizzle that had happened over the past few weeks. Typical British weather. As I walked into the coffee shop, I saw Nicola sat at a table in the far end of the shop, already with two mugs of coffee. She waved at me as I made my way over to her. I wasn't sure what I was more happy about - the coffee or the muffin she had got already for me.

"Sorry, I'm late," I apologised. "Mum had to borrow my car since hers decided to break down this morning as she dropped Kieran off at school so I had to get the bus here."

"It really isn't your week this week, is it?" Nicola asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

"What do you mean?" I laughed, tipping a sachet of sugar into my latte.

"Well, first there was last night with you having to take Jess to hospital and then your mum nicking your car," Nicola explained, looking at me from over her mug as she took another sip of her coffee.

"Jess was in hospital?" I asked, beginning to panic. "Is she okay?"

"Yes.." Nicola paused. "You took her."

"I did?" I noticed Nicola looking at me with a suspicious look. I didn't know what was going on but I knew I had to say something. "I mean, yeah, I did. Sorry, I think I must have had a dodgy drink last night when I got home."

"What time did you end up getting home?" Nicola asked, calming down the suspicion.

"Um, I'm not sure."

"Well, you texted me at 1am."

"Really?" I asked. "What did I say?"

"Sammy, are you feeling alright?" Nicola laughed.

I didn't reply. What was going on? Why couldn't I remember anything that happened last night? "Yeah, I'm fine," I smiled. "I'm just being stupid. Sorry."

I got my phone out from my bag and flicked through the messages that I had sent last night. There was one to mum. There was one to Michelle. There was one to my boss. But there wasn't one to Nicole. Why wasn't it showing up on my phone? Did I delete it last night? All these questions were going around in my head but I didn't have an answer for them - not one. The only thing I knew was something really weird was going on.

"So how was the pizza?" I asked. "Gutted I missed it."

"So nice. Don't worry. We're all gonna plan to go on another meal out in a few weeks once Lucy is back from Australia so you'll have to make up for it then," Nicola grinned.

"Jess can pay for my share as compensation for making me miss pizza," I joked, going along with what Nicola had told me about last night.

"So what happened last night with you and that guy?" Nicola winked.

If I wasn't confused before, I certainly was confused now. "What guy? What are you on about?" I laughed. "There wasn't a guy."

"There was. You know when you came out of the bathroom and told me you were taking Jess to the hospital. This guy appeared at the end of the corridor and you looked at him and then, all of a sudden, you dashed off in the same direction."

"I have no idea," I smiled. "There wasn't a guy though. Jess and I got in a taxi, went to the hospital and then after the hospital, we got a taxi home. No guy."

Nicola didn't seem to have bought my lie, but neither did I. The fact I couldn't remember anything that went on last night and now there was apparently some guy involved too didn't make my suspicion any less aroused. I needed to find out what was going on, and, more importantly, what happened last night.

* * *

As soon as I got into my room, I closed the door behind me and dialled Jess' number. Sitting down on my bed, I was determined to find out what happened last night. Hopefully Jess would have some indication as to what happened.

"Hello," Jess' voice answered on the other end of the telephone line.

"Jess, it's me."

"Sammy, what the fuck happened last night?"

"That's what I was ringing you about. I can't remember anything," I explained, beginning to panic. Why didn't she have any recollection of what happened last night either?

"Same. The only thing I can remember is getting ready to go out because I dropped some nail varnish on my sofa and I noticed it this morning. But something must have happened last night as I have these marks on my arm - it looks like animal claw marks."

"Claw marks?" I asked.

"I'm getting pretty freaked out and I'm close to calling the police."

I paused for a moment. I knew getting the police involved would be a bad idea - I don't know how I knew, I just knew. I also knew I had to act fast before Jess began to freak out even more than she already was. I could work out what happened by myself, but I first needed to reassure Jess.

"I think I remember," I blurted out, without even a moments consideration as to what I was going to say.

"What happened?" Jess asked.

"We went to the Italian restaurant. You needed to go to the toilet so I said I'd come with you. When we walked into the bathrooms, you slipped and hit your head so I said we'd get you checked out at the hospital incase you had concussion or something. I didn't want you going home alone with a banged head without getting it checked out first so we got a taxi to the hospital. You got seen to and discharged. Then we got a taxi to mine. Cocoa decided to jump up at you when we got in and accidentally scratched your arm, which bled a bit. You took your paracetamol that the hospital told you to take but then we decided to drink a bit. Then you got a taxi home, drunk as a skunk."

"That actually sounds like something we'd do," Jess laughed.

I took a silent sigh of relief. "What are we like, hey?"

"I know. I was so worried when I woke up this morning. I didn't think we were drinking," Jess said.

"The wine bottles in my recycling box beg to differ," I lied. "At least now I can say I've experienced mixing prescribed medication and alcohol first hand."

"Good point," Jess joked. "I woke up thinking we had been attacked by some alien or something."

Then it hit me - 'WEEVIL'.

"Don't be silly, Jess," I said, putting on a fake laugh. "Anyway, I've gotta go pick up Kieran from school since mum's car has died. Speak soon."

"Alright, take care."

"Don't go mixing alcohol and paracetamol anymore," I joked before hanging up the phone.

Why did the name 'weevil' just jump into my head? What was it? Why did it sound so familiar? Grabbing my car keys off my bedside table, I jumped up from my bed, like I was on a mission - well, I suppose I was. I was going to find out what happened last night, even if it took weeks. I would find out. The story I told Jess wasn't even partly true. We never went to the hospital. We never came back to my house. We didn't drink wine. There was no wine bottles in the recycling bin. Cocoa would never harm a fly, let alone one of my best friends.

Running down the stairs, mum appeared in the doorway. "Sammy, do you mind if I.."

"I'm gonna go pick up Kieran from school," I smiled, much to her surprise. "What time does he get let out?"

"Three twenty," mum said.

I looked at my watch. I had ten minutes. My mission couldn't be postponed for anything, apart from picking up my brother from school.

"See you in a bit," I smiled, kissing mum on the cheek before running outside to my car.

* * *

"Sammy, where's mum?" Kieran questioned as he opened the passenger door of my car.

"Kieran, just get in. I don't have time. I need to be somewhere but I promised mum that I'd pick you up so get in."

Kieran got into the car and threw his rucksack onto my backseat, messing up my neatly arranged soft toy collection. I looked at him and rolled my eyes. "Seat belt," I said, looking at him until he clipped his seat belt in.

"Sammy," Kieran paused. "Can we have a trip to the cinema on Saturday night?"

"I don't know, Kieran," I said as I began to reverse out of the parking spot in Kieran's school car park and managed to get out of the car park before all the other cars had even managed to turn their engines' on. Kieran sighed as he knew I was about to give an excuse. "I have a lot of studying to do and I'm pretty behind already."

"It doesn't matter then," he said, sighing again.

"But I suppose I could spare a few hours on Saturday to take you to the cinema if you want," I smiled.

"Yes!" he beamed.

"On one condition."

"What?"

"You get my pink and white shirt back from Isobelle's room by tomorrow morning at 9am," I grinned. "If it is not in my wardrobe by 9:01am tomorrow, there's no cinema. Alright?"

"Alright."

* * *

Retracing the route we took yesterday from the meeting point in the car park in the middle of Cardiff's city centre to the Italian restaurant, things slowly began to come back to me. I was starting to remember certain things. I remembered that one of the girls had told us that Kerry Smith, a large girl who used to be in our first year seminar group at university, was now pregnant. Then I remembered Jess saying she saw something, claiming it to be an alien beast and then none of us believing her. By the time I reached the restaurant, I knew I had to make my way into the toilets to try and trigger off any other memory over what happened last night.

"Closed" a sign on the front of the restaurant said.

I looked at the opening times and then looked back at the sign again in confusion. I even tried to open the door but it was locked. Looking in through the glass, I noticed that the whole restaurant was now empty. Everything had been removed from it - even the cute little white whicker tables and the authentic paintings that hung on the walls. After a few moments, I wandered down the street and cut through an alley that led to the back streets behind the restaurant. My suspicions were growing the more I was investigating.

As I got to the back yard of the restaurant, I looked in through the windows but even the back of the restaurant was closed off and deserted. Turning back around, I was met by a tall man with a dark blue military style coat on. He leaned against the wall with a huge smile across his face and his arms crossed, as if he had been waiting for someone. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was looking at someone stood behind me but there was nobody.

"Yes, I'm looking at you," he laughed.

I was confused. "Why?"

"Because you've impressed me."

"I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

"Sammy, my name is.."

Then I slowly began to remember. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"I have to admit, I didn't think you'd manage to do it as it only takes certain people with high intelligence to do it, but you have managed to do it, so well done."

I looked at him in confusion. "What's going on?"

"Sammy, last night, I gave you an amnesia pill of my own design, laced in a sedative. Along with the scotch, you were out within seconds, giving me enough time to get you and your friend, Jess, back to your own houses and leaving no clues as to what happened last night."

"Torchwood."

Jack nodded.

"Weevil."

Jack nodded again.

"You wanted to know why the weevil wouldn't kill me or Jess."

"Hey presto, you've nailed it."

"Then why did you drug us?" I asked.

"Two reasons. One. We couldn't have you telling anybody about us. Torchwood is a very secretive agency. Two. But, most importantly, when the weevil attacked, you didn't run away screaming or alert anybody else of it. You dealt with it in your own manner - capturing it in the cupboard and then helping your friend. The amnesia pill would be the second test to see if you were intelligent enough to work it all out, even after having your memory wiped."

I looked at him in confusion. "But.."

"Sammy, that weevil didn't attack you and we still need to find out why."

"So what do you want me to do about it?" I asked, still confused as to what was going on.

"Come back to the hub."

Jack led me towards a huge black car at the end of the alley and opened the back door for me. Sliding in, I looked around at all the gadgets.

"Nice to see you again, Sammy," a guy in a suit smiled to me from the driver's seat. "I'm Ianto."

"Nice to meet you," I smiled.

The car slowly began to drive through Cardiff's city centre as I sat in the back, trying to still work out what was going on. I vaguely remembered most of last night's occurrences, but I did not understand why Jack had drugged me so I'd forget everything and then turn up and help me remember what happened. Why was he testing me?

As Ianto and Jack sat in the front of the car, talking quietly to themselves, I sat in silence, thinking about last night. As Jack said, the weevils had a chance to kill me and Jess but didn't. Jess managed to get away with just claw marks and I was left untouched. Why didn't they kill us? I began to retrace everything possible that linked me and Jess up together - everything from growing up together in London to what colour dresses we were wearing last night. Everything seemed so irrelevant. That was until an idea hit me.

I rummaged around in my bag and pulled out my idea.

"I've thought of something that could be why the weevil didn't kill me or Jess."

Jack turned around, looking interested in what I had to say. "What is it?"

* * *

_Last night. _

Getting out of my car, we were already five minutes late for meeting up with the girls for our meal at the new Italian restaurant that had just opened up in town. The reviews of the place were outstanding and I had developed a real craving for a proper pizza since walking past Pizza Hut last Saturday on my way home from work. Waiting for Jess to get out of the car, I fixed my fringe to the side with a bobby clip that I found in the side pocket on my car door - I wasn't that surprised though as I probably had a whole bobby pin distribution centre hidden in there with the amount I use for work.

"Sammy, can I borrow your perfume?" Jess asked as she finally got out of the car after applying another coat of lipstick. "I left mine at home."

"Sure," I said, leaning over to the glove compartment and pulling out my perfume bottle.

"Thank-you," she smiled as she squirted some on her neck and wrists.

* * *

_Today._

Instead of replying to him, I just handed over my bottle of perfume. "It's just hit me now but I remember last night you had this sort of weevil.. um, anti-weevil spray thing and I said how it was a deodorant. Well, what if the ingredients of the spray are actually in the perfume? It would make sense as I use that perfume every day and have done since it was released a year ago. Jess borrowed my perfume an hour before we had the weevil encounter because she left her perfume at home, which is why the scent wasn't as strong on Jess as she's only used it the once and if I've used it roughly three times a day for a year, I've probably got a more stronger scent of it because it is in my skin, which correlates to the fact that they only touched Jess and didn't kill her when they had the chance to kill her and they didn't touch me."

"Sammy," Jack paused. "You absolute genius."

I smiled victoriously to myself.

"We'll get this tested back at the hub." Jack smiled at me again before putting the perfume in his coat pocket.

By the time we got back to the hub, I had managed to remember everything that happened last night. It was probably a good idea that Jess didn't know anything that happened and that she still believed my slightly tweaked version of events. Although Jess was my best friend, she did love a bit of gossip every now and again; and something like this would have made her have a field day, especially since she was part of it.

Walking through the many doors and gates to the centre of the hub, I was met by Gwen. "I thought you'd do it," she grinned. "Welcome to the team." Jack quickly shook his head at Gwen, leaving me in confusion. "Oh, ah," Gwen paused. "Need to go finish off this report. I'll see you in a bit, Sammy."

"Tosh, run tests on this and the anti-weevil spray. Any similarities report back to me," Jack ordered, throwing my bottle of perfume through the air towards Toshiko who was ready to catch it from her desk station. "Owen, take Sammy for the tour of the hub," Jack said to Owen, who was sat beside Gwen. "And Ianto," Jack paused. "Coffee."

As everyone dispersed to do their thing, Owen walked across the room to me. "So, rumour has it that you've managed to solve the mystery of why the weevil didn't kill you or your friend," he said.

I shrugged my shoulders. "It's not confirmed yet - just a suggestion."

"Your perfume and the anti-weevil spray have the same ingredients?" He asked. "What's it called 'Weevil by Chanel'?"

I smiled. "Something like that."

"So this is the hub. There, we have Gwen's desk," he pointed to where Gwen was sat, typing at her computer.

I followed him up the steps towards where Toshiko was stood, doing tests on both my perfume and the anti-weevil spray. "This is where Tosh works," Owen said, showing me a desk with computer monitors surrounding it at every angle. "Then, this is where the magic happens." Owen led me down the steps to a sort of operating theatre. "This is where I perform autopsies on the aliens who die or perform life-saving operations."

"Or in most cases, that is where he plans his next mission to womanise Cardiff," Toshiko butted in as she walked down the steps and grabbed a pipette from the equipment trolley.

"What can I say?" Owen said, turning to me. "Ladies love me."

"So how do you operate on all these aliens and save all these lives if your head is as big as Mars?" I asked.

Toshiko smirked at me as she walked back to her station. Owen looked unimpressed by my question. "Let's finish the tour," he groaned.

* * *

After finishing the tour with Owen, he showed me the cells - looking at the weevil that was hiding in the corner, whimpering to itself.

"Where did it come from?" I asked, watching it sympathetically.

"Nobody knows exactly. They came here due to the rift that runs through Cardiff."

"The what?"

"Rift," he repeated. "Its a weakness in space and time, like a passage between one space-time to another."

"So you mean people can go from one time to another time just by going through it?" I asked, amazed by what I was hearing.

"Technically, no. It doesn't work like that exactly, but yes, people and objects can fall through time because of it."

"Whoa."

"Owen, do you mind if I take Sammy off your hands?" Jack asked as he walked into the cells.

"Sure," Owen said, before quickly disappearing up to the main part of the hub, leaving Jack and I in the cells with the weevil.

"I guess you're gonna need to wipe my memory again now since I know all this stuff that I shouldn't know," I paused, preparing to say goodbye to all this amazing stuff for the last time.

"Why would I do that?" Jack asked. "You'll only work it all back out again."

"So you expect me to go about my usual life knowing that all this amazing stuff is out there?"

"Well, you could join us - if you wanted to, that is."

I looked at him in disbelief. Could I really do it? Could I really quit being a doctor after I had just graduated university, especially after all the hard work and effort I put into my studying to come out with a first? Could I really give up saving lives of patients in hospital and help save the world from alien attacks and such instead?

"Hell yeah!"

Jack smiled as he looked at the weevil. "Oh, and by the way, your theory was correct - your perfume had similar chemicals to the weevil spray."

"So that's why I haven't been pulling guys in the last year or so," I joked.


	2. Dying to Meet My Baby

**Dying to Meet My Baby**

Fixing my make-up in the mirror, I began to get the butterfly feeling in my stomach, which wasn't surprising really - first day nerves always affected me more than they seemed to affect everyone else I knew. Theoretically it wasn't my first day working for Torchwood as I had already solved the mystery of the weevil that wouldn't kill me - luckily, but technically, today was my first day being a Torchwood employee. The worst part of it all was I couldn't even get a 'good luck' from mum - she wasn't allowed to know any of it.

"Sammy, would you mind giving me a lift into town on your way to work?" mum called up the stairs as I stood in front of my mirror, debating on whether I needed to change my outfit for a third time in the past hour.

"Sure," I shouted back.

I'd opted for black jeans, my pink and white checkered top that Kieran had managed to get back from Isobelle's room and my black leather jacket. I had no idea what to wear - well, I suppose, what was the appropriate outfit for fighting aliens? I couldn't google it because google would pretty much tell me I was insane. I couldn't even casually slip it into a conversation with my friends because they would just say something along the lines of a PVC body suit like Ann Summers sell for Catwoman fancy dress. I couldn't even ask Kieran as being the seven year old he is, the response would probably be underpants and tights.

After finally deciding that I should start to make a move and get my ass into gear for my first day, my phone began to ring on my bed. Reaching over to grab it, I saw the word "work" flashing up on the screen in big letters.

"Sammy, it's Jack. Change of plan - got a call from Cardiff city hospital. We'll pick you up on our way round. Looks like your first day will be full of action after all."

"Rightio," I said, before hanging up.

At least now I didn't have to lie to mum about where I was going - I really was going to work at the hospital; I just wasn't working for the hospital anymore. Picking up my car keys from my bedside table, I ran down the stairs, calling out to mum as I did so.

"Ready," she smiled, walking out of the lounge.

"You can have the car today," I said, handing the keys to her. "Been called into a last minute lecture on brain lesions so some of the other junior doctors said we'll car pool."

"That's fine with me," mum smiled, taking the keys out of my hand. "Means I can finish off watching Gary Barlow's interview on Breakfast before I set off."

No. No. No. That wasn't the plan. Stupid Gary Barlow. The plan was to get her out of the way and on her way to town before the car, or the 'SUV' as I had been told to call it by Jack, had picked me up so mum wouldn't get suspicious as all. The less questions I had to give lies as answers to, the better it was for all of us. I couldn't stand lying but at least I knew I was lying to protect my family.

"Well, mum," I paused, trying to think of a reason why mum had to leave the house straight away as quickly as I possibly could - The Hub was only a ten minute drive away from my house and with Ianto's driving skills, that could easily be taken down to a three minute drive, even during rush hour. "You've already missed a bit of it so why don't I put it on record so you can watch it when you get back from town?"

Mum hesitated for a few moments before she picked her jacket back up from the sofa and flung it on. "I'd better get going then," she smiled. "Have a good day at work. Is it a late one today?"

"All depends on this lecture," I smiled. "But I think after the lecture I'm observing an operation this afternoon so could be a really later one."

"Good luck then," mum said, giving me a kiss on the cheek before she headed out the front door and towards my car.

At least I got a 'good luck' from mum. It wasn't the sort of 'good luck' you're supposed to get on the first day of your new job, but it was something. I quickly pressed the record button on the television remote then stood in the middle of the bay window in the lounge, watching mum as she reversed my car off the drive. After a quickly little wave to me, she was soon driving down the street and out of our estate. Luckily, as I saw mum indicating to turn left at the end of the street in the distance and slowly pulling out to join the main road, the SUV came roaring round the corner and heading straight towards my house. Running towards the front door, I opened it up and jumped outside into the cold morning fresh air, locking the door behind me. As the side door opened, I was met by Toshiko.

"Good morning," she smiled, shuffling across so I could get in.

"Morning," I smiled.

"Tosh, give Sammy her ear piece and PDA," Jack ordered.

"Here's your ear piece," Tosh smiled, handing over a gadget to me that resembled a bluetooth headset. "And your PDA."

"These will be your life lines during this job," Jack added. "Guard them with your life."

I nodded as Tosh fitted my ear piece and hid it with my hair.

* * *

_Cardiff City Hospital_

Walking into the hospital's lobby, I felt as if I was some sort of secret agent as all Jack had to do was mention the word 'Torchwood' to the front desk staff and they buzzed us in automatically. An old man met us in the corridor and led us into the lifts in silence. I didn't want to say anything. I didn't know what I would have said if I wanted to say anything in the first place. I couldn't wait to find out what our mission was for today, but at the same time, I wanted to keep it cool and act casual - after all, Torchwood usually got called when shit was going down.

"It's in here," the old man said, opening a door in the corridor that had the sign 'Maternity Ward' written across it.

I followed the rest of the team into the ward and as we paced past all the rooms, we finally came to a delivery room at the far end of the corridor.

"Alright, Gwen," a police officer, who was stood outside the room as if he was guarding it, smiled to Gwen.

"Andy, what's going on here?" Gwen asked - they blatantly knew each other from the way they were on a first name basis.

"Pregnant woman exploded apparently," the police officer, assuming he was called Andy, replied. "Took the phrase 'dying to meet my baby' too literally I suppose." Owen sniggered behind me as he overheard what Andy had just said. I wasn't comfortable with laughing over matters like this yet - after all, I believed in the idea that first impressions count - so I just smiled at Andy instead. "Newbie, I see."

"Yeah, Sammy," Gwen replied. "She's only a young 'un but she's done some good work so far."

"Good point. How old even are you?" Owen asked me.

"Twenty-three."

"Young 'un." Andy confirmed.

Jack led us into the delivery room. I hadn't prepared myself for what I was about to witness but I really wish I had. To be honest though, I don't think anything could have prepared me for what had happened. Gore in movies is one thing. Gore when you're dealing with patients is another thing. But this? This was something else. A woman laid on the delivery bed - her jaw wide open, as if she was screaming in agony without any sound coming out. It was like looking at a birth through a still photo. The only difference between this and the conventional birth was that the woman's stomach had exploded. I had to look away, but even that didn't help - there was bits of flesh scattered all around the room. In the corner laid two bodies - two middle aged women, wearing midwife uniforms that were covered in blood.

"But there's no sign of the baby?" Gwen asked the old man.

"That's to even say that it is a baby," Jack replied.

"Whatever it was wanted everyone who had seen it happen to be dead," the old man added. "Even the CCTV of the corridor had been tampered with so that we couldn't look to see if anything went in, or furthermore, came out of that delivery room before the bodies were discovered."

"These two have been stabbed straight in the heart with what appears to either be a long, sharp object as it goes straight through - in one side and out the other," Owen stated as he examined the bodies of the two midwives. "And whatever happened to the woman, it must have come from inside her due to mess."

"It's disgusting," I said, trying to pull myself together.

"How many exits and entrances do you have all together for this hospital?" Toshiko asked the old man. "I want to see all the CCTV for all possible exits since this woman was brought in."

"What have you told the woman's family?" Jack asked the old man.

"She didn't have any that we know of. She was a known drug addict of cocaine and heroine and from her records, the baby's father was unknown. Do you reckon the drugs had something to do with it?"

"Cocaine and heroine don't make you explode whilst pregnant and stab the midwives to death," I replied.

"Whatever this was, it's out there," Jack concluded.

* * *

_The Hub_

As everyone else was doing their own thing, Gwen was showing me how to run through medical records when Jack walked out of his office. "Another death. Same way. Pregnant woman's abdomen exploded. Baby no where to be seen. Medical team all dead."

"Which hospital?" Gwen asked.

"Guess."

"Cardiff City," I replied.

"I've checked through all the CCTV from the past 24 hours of the hospital and nothing suspicious has left any of the exits," Toshiko commented. "It could have had help getting out."

"Gwen, Ianto, you come with me to the hospital. Owen, you carry on analysing the midwives. Tosh and Sammy, look through the medical records of Amy Wylde," Jack ordered before him, Gwen and Ianto left The Hub.

I walked over to Toshiko's desk, where she sat finishing the final CCTV tape. Flicking through the medical record, I couldn't help but feel sad. This wasn't just a number on a file - this was a girl who had died giving birth. "Amy Wylde, born 4th March 1986 - she was only 21." I took a deep breath before I continued. "Had a history of drug abuse - started from the age of 14. Was in rehab through court order twice; found guilty of theft five times; found guilty of Class A possession three times. Fell pregnant to unknown father in 2006. Baby was supposed to be born tomorrow. So it was premature." Putting her information back into the folder, I noticed there was a little piece of card in the bottom of the folder. Pulling it out, I saw a baby scan - her baby.

"Tosh, this is the baby's scan at 21 weeks but it doesn't look abnormal at all. It looks like a healthy baby."

"Well, whatever that thing was - it wanted the mother and midwives dead. There was no way they could have survived that at all - went right through the heart," Owen said as he came back up from the autopsy room, taking off a pair of surgical gloves and chucking them into the bin as he came over to me and Tosh.

"Definitely not human," Toshiko concluded.

"The scans seem normal and there aren't any abnormalities reported for the anomaly scan at 21 weeks so whatever it was must have happened after the 21 weeks," I said, showing the scan to Owen.

"Looks like an alien to me," he said, handing the scan back to me.

"No, it's a baby - look," I laughed, standing up and pointing to the different parts of the baby's body on the scan. "There's its head. And then there's a little arm. And that there - that's its legs."

"Still an alien. All babies are aliens. All they do is cry. They're annoying," Owen replied, clearly showing off his obvious paternal instincts.

"Not the only thing that is annoying," I smiled before turning back to the desk and carrying on flicking through Amy's medical file, trying to find out anything I could that could help solve what happened to her and the baby.

* * *

Sat around the table in the conference room, we all watched Jack pace the length of the room in deep thought. "Sammy, any ideas?"

All eyes were now on me thanks to Jack. I looked at the two baby scans that were showing up on the monitor. "This is only a wild idea - but if I reckon, it's some sort of alien inhabiting the pregnant woman after killing off the foetus between the final scan and the birth. It then waits to be born."

"Excellent thinking," Jack smiled.

It still didn't make sense how I could be taken so seriously when thinking that an alien was causing all of this, but to be completely honest, none of this made sense yet. How could I have still be given this job with Torchwood?

"I reckon it's also having help from an inside person as there was no CCTV footage showing anything suspicious leaving the hospital within the last 24 hours."

Flicking through the medical records of Amy Wylde and the second patient, Kimberley Yates, for the second time, I noticed something.

"They have the same doctor."

"What?" Jack asked.

"Look," I said, pulling their records onto the monitor so that everyone around the table could see what I was talking about. "Their doctor. Karash Pytol. They are linked through the doctor. But not only that. From the records, the expectant mothers were either known drug abusers or known alcohol abusers and the babies' fathers weren't known to the mothers. And who better to be able to select the mothers than their doctor, who knew everything about them or was able to access information that told them everything about them."

"I'm trying to log on to get the list of patient's for Karash Pytol but the server keeps saying error," Toshiko said.

"Sammy, fancy going undercover?"

Nothing like throwing yourself into the deep end on the first day at your new job. "Yes."

* * *

_Outside Cardiff City Hospital_

Sitting in the SUV, Toshiko ran through my cover story with me. Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous to go in and act as someone else - finally, a use for my GCSE in Drama!

"Your name is Chelsea Gregson. You're 23 years old and have a history of drug abuse but you're now recovered. You'll find all your medical record information is already uploaded to the system. Here's your birth certificate and passport. You're not sure who the father is and you're five weeks gone," Toshiko began to explain. "Now take this." She handed me a tiny little pill. "This will make your body think you are pregnant - giving you the positive result on a test and it will also come back as pregnant on all the tests that Doctor Pytol might carry out on you."

"Tests?" I asked.

"Blood usually," Toshiko replied. "We'll all be listening in to everything that happens in the office through the ear pieces as long as you leave it switched on and hidden at all times."

"So what do I need to do when I get inside to access all the patient's records?" I asked.

"Use this," Toshiko continued to explain as she handed me a little device that looked like some sort of metal spider's web. "Place it on the computer's monitor for five seconds - no more, no less. It will then scan the entire computer hard drive and allow me to copy it all to my laptop back at The Hub. Okay?"

"Got it."

"Are you sure?" Jack asked.

"You don't have to do it if you don't feel like you'll be convincing enough for it," Gwen smiled.

"But if you don't go in, we can't get the patient's records because, lets face it, Gwen and Toshiko aren't exactly in his age range for victims," Owen cut in.

"I can do it," I confirmed.

"Right, remember, keep your ear piece on at all times."

"And Sammy," Gwen smiled. "As soon as you have got the confirmation from Tosh, get out of there."

I nodded. "Birth certificate. Passport. Scanner. Got it."

I got out the SUV and made my way towards the entrance to the hospital, looking around to make sure nobody was watching me. As I got into the hospital, I saw the SUV drive off and turn into a street beyond the hospital so it was out of sight. Taking a deep breath, I walked up to reception, carrying all the documents in my hand as I slipped the scanner into my bag so it was out of sight.

"Hello, how can I help you?" the smiley receptionist asked me.

"Um, I have an appointment with a Doctor Pytol at 2.30pm." I replied back to the receptionist, trying to act anxious - as if I really was a recovering drug addict going to find out if she really was pregnant.

"Chelsea Gregson?" the receptionist asked. I nodded. "Floor 4."

She buzzed me through and pointed to the lifts before dealing with the man behind me.

I walked down the corridor, looking around me to see if any junior doctors were around - making sure I couldn't be recognised. Getting into the lift, I pressed the button for floor 4 and waited. As soon as I got out of the lift, I saw a room in front of me with the name 'Doctor Karash Pytol' written on a plaque beside the door.

"I'm here," I whispered - loud enough so that the ear piece picked it up, allowing everyone back in the SUV to hear what I was saying but quiet enough so nobody around me could hear me talking to myself. Although, since I was posing as a recovering drug addict, it could help a lot with my character.

"Right, Sammy, good luck," I heard Jack say over the ear piece.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Chelsea?" The peculiar looking doctor asked as he opened the door to greet me.

"Uh, yeah," I replied.

"Come in."

As I sat down on the spare chair in his office, I looked around the room and then back to the doctor. He didn't look like an alien - he didn't resemble what aliens should look like at all. Then again, Jack did say he could be some sort of shape shifting alien that had the ability to change his appearance into anything, including humans.

Handing the documents that Toshiko had prepared for me over to Doctor Pytol, I continued to glance around the office, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that would give us an idea of what was going on and if this guy was even involved in it.

"So you think you're pregnant?" he asked.

"Yeah, the home test kit said positive so yeah, pregnant."

"And I see you used to suffer from a drug addiction?" he asked, seeming more interested in me by the second.

"Yeah. Three years clean, but still not rid of the 'addict' label."

"What do you mean?"

"My family have disowned me. I'm gonna be a single mother. I'm living in a tiny bedsit with a part time job. I ruined my life."

"I see." Doctor Pytol took a pause for a moment before standing up and walking towards his office door. "I'm just gonna go and get the equipment for the test to confirm your pregnancy and then we will take it from there."

He flashed me a sympathetic smile before leaving me in the room by myself. "He's gone," I whispered.

"Sammy, scan the computer then get the hell out of there," Gwen instructed. "We don't know what this guy is capable of."

"Way to make me feel positive about it all," I joked as I got the scanner out of my bag.

"Place it to the screen and I'll do the rest," Toshiko explained.

Following her instructions, I placed the scanner on the computer's screen and waited for confirmation from Toshiko that my job here was done. Looking around, I began to panic as I heard footsteps coming down the corridor as if they were coming towards the office.

Then I heard the word I waited what seemed like forever to hear. "Done."

Putting the scanner back into my bag, I put it over my shoulder, grabbed the forged documents off the desk that Doctor Pytol had carelessly left behind and shoved them in my bag as I made my escape through the door. Running down the corridor, I didn't look back and ran straight into the lift that luckily had just arrived empty to floor 4.

"Sammy, we're coming to the front of the hospital now."

* * *

_The Hub_

After clicking a few buttons and typing in some codes that resembled a child hitting a computer's keyboard repetitively, Toshiko had managed to get a list of patients up on the screen - all 739 of them.

"739?" Ianto asked.

"Yeah, but if we list the patients with similar backgrounds to those of Amy and Kimberley - age, drug or alcohol abuse, father known etc. etc. We'll be able to narrow it down to a hopefully sizeable amount of patients," I suggested.

"Brains and beauty," Owen said as he walked off towards the other work station.

I smiled to myself as Toshiko began to narrow the search down.

"But what happens if all these patients are all of the same background of that of the victims?" Ianto asked.

"Then we're in for an all-nighter," Jack said, winking at Ianto.

"Five patients all have the same background and under the age of thirty," Gwen said, highlighting the selection on her computer. "Father unknown as well as drugs or alcohol problems in past and presently."

"Good job, Gwen."

"But how do we know that this is what is happening to them?" I asked. "How do we stop them?"

"We don't know yet," Gwen said to me. "But we've had a pretty good record with saving the day so far."

"Toshiko, you stay here and call each patient to make sure they know we're coming round. Ianto, you drive. Owen, scan each patient to make sure the alien is already implanted. Gwen, you can do the talking. Sammy, watch and learn," Jack instructed.

"And what about you?" Gwen asked. "What will you do?"

"Stop the aliens."

Jack walked over to his office, leaving me sat by the workstations, wondering what he was planning. I never knew work could be so exciting. This definitely beat sitting in a lecture room and then watching an operation - I was in on the action.

* * *

_First patient's house_

Walking through the council estate, I tried my hardest to avoid stepping on litter but it was almost an impossibility; the whole place was scattered with litter. A children's play area left abandoned and vandalised. A burnt out car was a new attraction for all the pigeons that roamed around the courtyard. Following the team down the path, I looked up at all the flats.

We reached the first flat - belonging to a Scarlet Smith. Jack knocked on the door. "Hello, I'm.."

Before Jack had a chance to introduce himself, the woman cut him off. "Yeah, yeah, what do you want?"

"Scarlet Smith, am I right?" Gwen asked. She didn't really need to ask for her to confirm her identity as the bulging baby bump kind of gave it away - unless there was more than one pregnant woman living in this one bedroom council flat.

The woman nodded as she blew the smoke from her cigarette in our faces. "What's you want?"

"We're here to inspect your boiler."

I looked at Jack in confusion. Scarlet looked at Jack in confusion too.

"What? All of you?" Scarlet asked.

"Trainee engineers," Jack added, gesturing to me, Gwen and Owen as we stood behind him.

"Come in," Scarlet said.

"I'd like to ask you some questions about your boiler, if that's okay?" Gwen asked.

Making my way into the flat, I was overcome with the stench of weed and cigarette smoke. Holding my breath to avoid a coughing fit, I followed Jack into the hallway, past all the junk that seemed to have collected at the side of the hallway. Owen got the scanner out from his pocket and began to aim at Scarlet as she stood with her back to us in an area I could only presume was a lounge going by the tatty tartan sofa that stood unloved in the corner.

"Yeah, alien."

Jack gave a nod to Gwen before walking into the kitchen in search of the "boiler" we were going to "inspect". Gwen walked into the kitchen after a few moments.

"Done."

Following them out, I saw Scarlet lying asleep on the sofa. "What did you do?" I asked.

"Injected her with this," Gwen said, showing me an empty syringe.

"What's that?" I asked. I hated to ask all these questions but I would never learn without asking them. The world of Torchwood was a confusing place.

"It's a mixture of methyoxythide and rhoghanioxide," Owen explained. "Kills the alien without harming her."

"So she will miscarry?" I asked as we walked back towards the SUV.

"Essentially, yes," Gwen said.

"We just murdered her baby?" I asked, trying to understand what kind of mess I had got myself into.

"No, Sammy," Jack said, turning around. "We didn't murder her baby. The aliens murdered her baby."

I couldn't believe what they were doing.

"Sammy," Gwen said, taking hold of my arm and stopping me before I got into the SUV. "I was the new girl before you and some of the things that they were doing were horrible - but you have to think of it this way. We just killed that alien and yes, she might think that it was her baby that died, but it wasn't. Her baby died long ago. You saw what it did to that poor woman in the hospital - two of them in fact. And if we don't stop the aliens before the women go into labour, they will have the same fate. So don't you see? We're saving the women at the cost of their pregnancy."

I nodded. I suppose Gwen had a point. I still didn't agree with it, but who was I to argue? These were the professionals and I had to learn from the best.

* * *

_Cardiff City Hospital _

Walking through reception in a rushed pace, I caught sight of Doctor Pytol as he made his way into the lift, surrounded by some other Doctors. As soon as he latched eyes on me, his whole facial expressions changed - he knew who I was. His hand kept hitting the floor number on the lift as quickly as he possibly could, attempting to get away from us by the time we managed to get through reception.

"He's in the lift," I shouted before running towards the stairs.

Running up four floors didn't seem too bad - at least I wouldn't have to make time to go to the gym tonight. Floor one. I turned around to see Jack, Owen, Gwen and Ianto running behind me. Floor two. I felt as if I was Usain Bolt in the Olympic's 100m sprint final. Floor three. Running up the final flight of stairs, I prayed we were gonna get to his office before he did. Floor four. Grinding to a halt in the middle of the fourth floor corridor, I looked down each end of the corridor to find the ward busy with people, but the entire place was quiet. There wasn't a single sound to be heard in the ward, not even a newborn baby's cry could be heard. It was like I had lost my hearing.

"Sound barrier," Jack paused. "He's good."

"It's this way," I said, before running towards the lift and barging open the first office - the office I was in only four hours previously.

Swinging open Doctor Pytol's office door, I found myself being hit in the face with a large object. My lip throbbing with pain. I put my finger to it and found that blood was pouring from it. Spotting a lamp lying on the floor by my feet, I looked back up to see Doctor Pytol, backing into the corner of the office, holding a waste paper bin in front of him, as if to protect him.

"We know what you're doing," Jack said as he walked towards the squeamish Doctor. "And we're stopping it right now."

"P-p-please," Doctor Pytol stuttered as he tried to back further away from us. "I didn't want to do it. I was made to do it."

"By who?" I asked.

"By-by-by-by them. They made, they made me do it."

"Who is them?" Jack demanded.

Instead of receiving a verbal answer back, Doctor Pytol pointed to a metal filing cabinet beside where Jack was standing. A filing cabinet made him plant aliens into his patients' bodies so they could make the woman explode as she gave birth to aliens, not to mention the murder of all the medical teams involved with the women's labours? This Doctor really was deluded.

Jack tried to open the filing cabinet, only to find out it was locked.

"Let me," Owen said, hustling Jack to the side as he reached into the pocket of the inside of his jacket.

Not before long, the top drawer to the filing cabinet sprung open, revealing a fluorescent purple glow emitting from it. We all peered over the top to see two little fluffy guinea pigs curled up in a ball, looking up at us. They were pretty adorable to be honest. Each alien possessed four big black eyes that resembled the eyes a puppy gives you when you don't let them have a treat.

"That's why Tosh said there wasn't any CCTV for the exits showing anything getting out," I realised. "How can it show something getting out of the hospital when its been staying in the hospital for the whole time?"

All of a sudden, a giant bat-like creature appeared above Doctor Pytol. Its wings were spread wide as if it was about to swoop down and catch its prey - us. At the end of its scrawny wings were two immeasurable talons that were sharp as a razor blade - at least that explained how the medical teams had met their unfortunate and grisly ends. "You deny me of my children. You murdered my children," I scowled in a husky voice as it continued to tower above us.

"You murdered those women's children," Jack shouted back, pushing me behind him.

Gwen grabbed hold of me and began to drag me to the door - Owen following behind her.

"You murdered my children. I murder you."

"Get out of here," Doctor Pytol screamed as he looked at us with a helpless look in his eyes.

"You murdered my children. I murder you."

"You have to get out of here," Doctor Pytol pleaded.

I looked over at him and couldn't help but realise how fearful this poor man was of the creature that was hovering over him, watching our every move.

"You murdered my children. Now," the creature paused. "Now, I murder you."

Jack looked back over his shoulder at us and mouthed one word to us - 'run'. As I began running, I stopped just as we reached the stairwell. "What about the people on the ward?" I panicked. "We need to get them out. We need to evacuate the building."

"The sound barrier," Jack paused, as if he was having a moment of realisation.

Jack still wasn't making any sense but we didn't have enough time. I tried to break off from the rest of the group and ran towards the ward, but Owen grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me into the stairwell, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket.

"What?" Gwen asked as we all ran down the stairs.

"The sound barrier. Doctor Pytol put in the sound barrier as he knew that whatever that thing is would react in this sort of way."

"The sound barrier acts as a defence shield as well," Jack began to explain as we continued to run down the stairs. "Doctor Pytol must have activated one over the entire hospital apart from his office."

"Then why are we running?" Gwen asked, coming to a sudden stop.

"Life is so much more exciting when you have to run from things," Jack winked, before we all continued to run down the stairs.

Running out of the hospital, there was a large 'boom' heard behind us, shaking the whole hospital as the office exploded. As I leant against a street light, catching my breath back on the pavement beside the hospital, everyone in the hospital began to look around in confusion. Within seconds, the SUV came screeching round the corner, breaking just in front of us. As soon as we had all clambered in and shut the doors behind us, Ianto began to drive off again towards The Hub.

"So what will happen to the alien now?" I asked. "Has it gone?"

"It's dead. They are what we call a mother alien. They only survive as long as their children survive. Since no more aliens of theirs will be born and the explosion killed their surviving offspring, the alien will die out too," Jack began to explain.

* * *

_The Hub_

"Sit down there," Owen directed as he pushed me down on a stool in the autopsy room as he grabbed a cotton bud from the equipment tray and ran it under the tap.

"My lip?" I asked, putting my finger over the wound. "It's fine."

"No arguing. Shut your mouth so I can sort it out."

Taking a stool from beside the autopsy table and placing it in front of me, Owen looked at me. I reluctantly put my lips together so Owen could clean it up. As he gently wiped the cotton bud over the cut, I whimpered slightly at the sting. To say I was a junior doctor myself, I was such a baby when it came to getting hurt myself. Watching him as he concentrated on my lip, I couldn't help but wonder why he was so mysterious. He probably could be a really fun guy to work with if he let go of all his mystery. The job was mysterious itself without having the people I worked with being a mystery too. It was there that I decided what I was going to it. That was it. My new mission was to get rid of Owen's mysterious side.

"Why are you all mysterious?" I asked him as he finished with cleaning my lip up.

"Mysterious?" he questioned, looking back at me in confusion with the same mysterious look that he had on his face since the moment I met him.

"Yeah." Instead of getting a reply, all I got was a shoulder shrug before Owen disappeared up the steps, leaving me in the autopsy room by myself. "Thanks for sorting my lip out anyway," I called after him.

* * *

_Home_

Walking up the path towards my front door, I sighed to myself. The hour was fast approaching and I knew mum would be pacing the floor until I got back in, worried about why I was home so late. Even though I was twenty-three years of age, it didn't stop her worrying about me every second of the day. I mean, I was still living at home and hadn't even had a place to call my own yet. All my other friends had their own houses or flats whilst I was stuck in a four bedroom house with my mum, step-dad and their kids. Don't get me wrong - I loved being part of my family and wouldn't change a single one of them for anything else in the world, but I did want my own independence. I suppose now I was working at Torchwood, I could start to think about getting my own place, although I wasn't sure how my mum would react with me moving out. Since moving out of my dad's house in London and back in with my mum here in Cardiff, I'd grown so much more closer to my mum and it killed me that I couldn't share Torchwood with her as it was obvious that Torchwood would now become a huge part of my life.

Putting my key into the front door, I found it to already be unlocked. As soon as I walked in through the door, mum flew out of the lounge and stood in front of me with a look of worry on her face. "Why haven't you called me?" she asked, panicking. "Why didn't you answer your phone? Have you been at the hospital today? Why is your phone switched off? Have you seen the news?"

"What's with the twenty questions?" I laughed, putting my bag down on the floor in front of the stairs and sitting down on the bottom step to take off my shoes. "My phone ran dead this lunchtime and I didn't have my charger with me so I couldn't charge it up. I was in Newport today. Why? What's happened?"

I knew exactly what had happened - I was there, but I couldn't let mum know that. All she would do was worry even more about me than she already does - if that's even entirely possible.

"Big explosion of Cardiff City Hospital," she paused, grabbing my arm and dragging me into the lounge where the ten o'clock news was showing footage of the chaos at the hospital. "It only affected one office apparently but I thought you were hurt - I thought you were dead." Mum looked at me and caught sight of my lip. "What happened to your lip? How did you cut it open?"

I froze for a moment before covering my lip with my hand. "Oh, it's nothing," I laughed. "One of the other junior doctors opened the car door earlier and it hit my chin and I bit my lip. At least we had experience with dealing with minor injuries."

"You have to be more careful," mum said, examining my lip closer. "Now, would you like a cup of tea? Kettle has just boiled."

I nodded. As mum disappeared into the kitchen, I sat down on the sofa and turned the volume on the television up slightly.

"We're out of Typhoo so it'll have to be PG Tips," mum called from the kitchen as I tried to concentrate on what the news reporters were saying about the blast.

"Yeah, that's fine mum," I replied, turning the television set up a bit more.

"It's a miracle nobody else got hurt, or even worse. We aren't treating the explosion to be suspicious and usual business will resume tomorrow for Cardiff City Hospital," the spokesperson for the hospital said, talking into the camera outside the hospital.

I took a sigh of relief as I sank back into the sofa and closed my eyes after what had been a hectic, yet amazing, first day at Torchwood. We didn't manage to save the world - but we managed to defeat one alien and stop a whole load of murders. I think it's safe to say that that was a successful first day done.


	3. George

**George**

As the morning light invaded its way through the curtains, Gwen groaned. As the alarm filled the room with a screeching sound, Gwen's fiancé, Rhys, groaned. Reaching her hand out of the duvet and over to the bedside table, Gwen continuously slapped the alarm until it stopped beeping. Gwen lifted her head up off the pillow and read the time on the clock: '7.30am'. Gwen let out another groan.

"How about we both take the day off sick?" Rhys suggested, rolling over and draping his arm over Gwen.

"I would love to," she said in between kisses. "But.."

"Special Ops doesn't wait for anyone?" Rhys paused. "I know."

"I promise we'll do something special this weekend."

"Okay," Rhys sighed, lifting his arm up so Gwen could get out of bed.

Walking into the kitchen, Gwen let out a massive yawn that was followed by a large bang, sounding like a bomb exploding. "What the bloody hell was that?" Gwen asked, rushing over to the window.

As Gwen opened up the curtains, her jaw dropped as she saw what was going on in the world outside. Not only was it now pitch black outside but the sky was full of planes heading towards the centre of Cardiff, dropping bombs as they flew over. The fires from the bombings was illuminating the night sky to a luminous orange glow. "Rhys," Gwen called, looking back towards the bedroom before she turned back to look at what was going on outside. Looking down at the street, Gwen realised it wasn't her street anymore. Well, it was. It just wasn't her 2007 street. More like the 1940s street. Most of the windows were covered in black curtain or newspaper but all of them had tape on them in an 'X' formation. Looking up at the night sky, Gwen froze as she saw one of the planes dropping a bomb that was heading straight towards her street. As it landed at the end of the street, the whole house shook.

"Rhys," she shouted again.

Running back into the bedroom, Gwen found that there was no Rhys in the bedroom - she was all alone stuck in her flat in the middle of the 1940 Blitz raids on Cardiff. Grabbing her phone from the bedside table, she placed it to her ear and waited for someone to answer the phone at the other end.

* * *

_Home_

Dancing around the kitchen to the radio, I complemented my atrocious dance moves with ear-shattering singing. Placing my mug beneath the coffee machine, I watched as the liquid fall in front of my eyes, smiling as it filled the air with the strong coffee aromas. The rest of my family were on holiday in the South of France, meaning I had the whole house to myself for the next two weeks. I wasn't even sure why I was excited about it - I knew after the novelty wore off after two days, I'd miss Isobelle nicking all my clothes, Kieran begging to use my laptop but most of all, I'd miss mum's constant nagging at me to clean the bathroom or to do laundry.

Sipping on the cup of coffee, I took a huge sigh of relief. It was already 7am and I hadn't got a phone call from any of the team yet, asking me to come into work yet, meaning I could leisurely get ready before I had to go in. Turning up the music a bit louder, I grabbed my cereal box from the shelf and poured myself a bowl. Opening the fridge, I realised there was next to nothing in. "Looks like it's no milk cereal Wednesday today," I groaned to myself, walking over to the kitchen counter and grabbing my cereal from the side and sitting down at the breakfast bar with it.

Alternating between guzzling my coffee and crunching on the dry weetabix, I also managed to fit in singing along to the radio.

Once breakfast was out of the way, I climbed back up the stairs and jumped into the shower - turning up the radio even louder so that I could sing along in the shower. Just as I lathered up my hair with the shampoo that I had hidden in the bottom of my wardrobe since Christmas so that Isobelle, or mum for that matter, couldn't steal it and use it all before I had the chance to use it, my phone began to ring. "They'll ring back if it's important," I thought to myself. Nothing was more important right now than getting all squeaky clean.

Wrapped up in a towel, I grabbed my phone from the bathroom shelf and saw that I had a missed call from Gwen - crap. Scrunching my hair with another towel, I pressed the ring back button and placed the phone to my ear, making sure I didn't get it covered in water from my hair. I turned down the radio and waited for Gwen to answer.

"Hello," Gwen's voice answered on the other end of the phone line. "Sammy. Is that you?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "Sorry I missed your call. I was in the shower and didn't hear the phone ring." A little white lie never hurt anyone.

"Sammy, where are you?" she asked.

"My house," I paused. "Why? Do you need me to come into work?"

"Sammy, what year are you in?"

I laughed. "Gwen, are you drunk?"

"Sammy, I'm being serious. What year are you currently in?"

The seriousness in her voice started to make me panic. "Um, 2007?"

"Are you sure? Are you positive?"

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

If I wasn't in 2007, how could I be listening to Rihanna on the radio? If I wasn't in 2007, how could I be talking to her on my phone? I walked out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. Just as I was about to choose what outfit to wear today, something in the corner of my eye caught my attention - fire outside?

"I woke up this morning, looked out the window to see.."

I cut Gwen off. "There's been a bomb. Like in the street behind mine. A bomb has gone off and I didn't hear it?"

"Sammy, it isn't 2007. I think some how we've gone back to the 1940s Blitz."

I fell back onto my bed, trying to work out how this could have happened. If I was in 1940, how could I be talking to Gwen on the phone? Had everyone been transported back in time? The bombs were all going off outside my window, especially over at the city centre. I stood up and looked down at my garden that laid below my window but it wasn't my garden anymore - the trampoline at the bottom of the garden wasn't there anymore and had been replaced by a metal structured Anderson shelter.

"Sammy, we need to somehow get to The Hub. I need to ring the others and see if they are here too," Gwen began.

Walking back into my bathroom, I realised that Rihanna was no longer playing on the radio. Instead, it was replaced with 'run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run'.

"Sammy, are you still there?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah, I'm just.." I paused. "How did this happen?"

"I don't know, but don't worry, we'll find a way to get back. I need to ring the others but keep your phone on you, and if I can't get back hold of you, I'll come to your house - don't leave yours until you hear anything from me," Gwen instructed.

"Okay," I agreed, taking a deep breath, trying to keep calm.

The phone line ran dead and I put my phone down on my bed. Grabbing my jeans and hoodie from my wardrobe, I got into them as fast as I could - faster than I have done anything in my entire life. I looked back out of the window and froze for a moment. I didn't know what the hell was going on but I had never been so scared. All sorts of questions were running through my mind. What is we couldn't get back? What happens if it was just me and Gwen stuck in the 1940s? How would the others know where we were? What had even made us get brought back to the 1940s? I shook my head, trying to shake the questions out of my mind. I needed to stay focused. I might have been absolutely petrified of what was going on but I needed to stay focused.

* * *

_1940 - Gwen's House_

Rummaging around in her bag, Gwen managed to locate her ear piece but it was dead. Huffing, she threw it back down in her bag and grabbed her phone off the side. Ringing Jack's number again. she placed the phone to her ear but it was no luck - Jack just wasn't answering. His phone didn't even run to voice mail - it was just running dead as soon as Gwen dialled the number. Scrolling through her contacts, Gwen found Owen's number and began to dial it.

"Gwen?"

"Owen, this might sound stupid but what year are you in?" Gwen asked.

"Well, I'm supposed to be in 2007 but by the German bombers flying above, I'd say 1940?"

"Same with me and same with Sammy," Gwen began. "I've tried to ring Jack but just getting no answer. I don't suppose you know if Tosh or Ianto are in 1940 too?"

"Tosh is. She rang me about ten minutes ago. Ianto isn't answering his phone though."

"We need to meet up somewhere to find out what's going on,"

"Cardiff Bay in half an hour?" Owen asked.

"Cardiff Bay in half an hour, but be careful with the bombings," Gwen said, looking out the window at the German bombers as they flew above, heading towards Cardiff, dropping more bombs as they got closer and closer towards the city centre.

* * *

_1940 - Home_

Sat anxiously on my bed, I nursed my phone in my hands, waiting for Gwen to call back. Luckily the bombers had flown past my area and were much further in the distance. Learning about the Blitz in primary school was scary enough, to be here, experiencing it was a completely different level of scariness all together. It wasn't even like I was in some sort of simulator machine at a war museum - this was actually happening just outside my window. History was happening and I was being part of it. I shouldn't have been part of it. I should have been getting ready to go to work to see what aliens we could find today and saving the world. I should not have been trapped in a completely different generation to what I was born in.

Finally, my phone began to ring again.

"Gwen."

"Sammy, Tosh and Owen are here too. We're gonna meet at Cardiff Bay in half an hour. Keep your phone on you at all times and.."

I interrupted Gwen before she had a chance to finish her sentence. "Avoid the bombs?"

"Yes, avoid the bombs."

"Mission accepted," I smiled, letting out a little laugh, trying to make light of the situation.

"Good luck, Sammy and I'll see you in half an hour."

I took a deep breath. "Good luck to you too."

Ending the call and putting my phone into my jeans pocket, I realised I was now on my own for this. I had to somehow get to Cardiff Bay that was three miles away within thirty minutes whilst there was an air raid going on. After running down the stairs, I slipped into my converse and double-checked that I had my phone in my pocket. Taking a deep breath, I headed towards the front door. Opening it up, the noise of the bombings happening in the distance was even louder than it was from my bedroom - almost deafening. The smell of burning pervaded the atmosphere and smoke slowly began to drift down the streets. Taking another deep breath, I psyched myself for running. In the distance, the sun was breaking out through the night sky. If what we had been taught in history back in primary school when we were studying the Second World War, the blitz' air raids usually finished as dawn broke - I hope Mr Fletcher was right as his 'history is in the past' quote had recently been proved to be wrong.

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff Bay_

After running as fast as I could run, which turned out to be pretty fast, I finally saw Cardiff Bay in the distance. Everywhere looked so different. I'd seen photos of Cardiff in the past but hadn't really taken much notice of how much changed in the past 60 odd years until now. Running across the flat land, I saw three little figures in the distance, looking back at me, waving as if to catch my attention. I turned around to see a German bomber swoop down across the bay and then back up to the skies as it continued its journey back to base, probably to wait until the next bombing. As soon as I reached the others, I placed my hands on my hips and leant over, trying to get my breath back.

"Any sign of Jack or Ianto yet?" I asked.

Toshiko shook her head. "Nope, nothing. All the intercoms are down."

Owen sighed, effectively summarising all of our feelings in one tiny word. "Shit."

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

"Any sign of them?" Jack asked Ianto as he walked out of his office to find Ianto on the computer, searching for possible rift activity.

"Nothing," Ianto paused. "I've tried everything. The computer isn't picking up any rift activity in the last 24 hours. All communications with them are down. All four of their phones go straight to answer machines. I've tried everything. It's not even like we can contact their families to see if they know anything."

Jack didn't reply. He stood looking at the screen in complete silence before walking away, leaving Ianto to carry on searching for solutions on the computer.

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff Bay_

"You know you said about the rift taking things from the past or future and depositing them in the present-day Cardiff?" I asked. "What happens if it can do the opposite? What happens if it can also take people from present-day Cardiff and displace them in history, in time?"

Gwen and Toshiko looked at me as Owen stood looking up at the German bombers as they began to fly away into the distance, leaving Cardiff to deal with the devastating aftermath of a night of heavy bombing and air raids.

"It's the only thing I can think of that would mean that we're stuck in 1940," I added.

"It would make sense," Toshiko agreed. "We've never thought of it like that as we've never really had the evidence that it is capable of doing that but.."

"So if we're here, why aren't Jack and Ianto here?" Owen asked, cutting into Toshiko's sentence.

"I don't know. None of this makes sense," Gwen replied. "None of it at all. The whole universe has just all gone to shit."

"We need to find a way that if Jack and Ianto are still in 2007 to tell them where we are," Toshiko suggested.

"It's like we've been stolen," I sighed, sitting down on the floor and looking out at the Bay.

"If its anything like when Jack and I got taken back to 1941, you managed to open the rift to let us get back through?" Toshiko explained to Owen. "My laptop is at the Hub - they can get the rift open."

"Yeah, but remember what happened after it?" Owen asked, shaking his head. "Nope. Never gonna happen. Jack won't allow it."

"What happened?" I questioned, looking up at them both in confusion.

Both Toshiko and Owen looked at me before turning back to each other, ignoring my question completely. As I sat on the floor, I sighed. Gwen sat down beside me and sighed.

"So what do we do now?" she asked. "We have no equipment, no communication with Jack.. nothing."

"Nothing we can do," Owen shrugged. "Just wait."

"No, there must be something we can do," Toshiko argued, deep in thought, trying to figure a way out of this mess. "We need to be able to leave a message for Jack and Ianto. They don't even know where we are."

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

Jack sat on the chair in his office, twirling around slightly as he looked out of the glass windows, admiring his empire. The unusual silence that filled the Hub was broken as Ianto rushed into the office. "Sir, they're not answering their phones," Ianto announced. "Not Gwen. Not Owen. Not Sammy. Not Tosh."

"Perfect," Jack slyly grinned, putting his feet up on the desk in front of him.

"This isn't the time to mess around, Jack. I can't get any of them and all the comms aren't working," Ianto paused, placing the dead ear piece on the desk in front of Jack. "I think something is wrong."

Sighing, Jack leapt to his feet and walked into the main part of the Hub, ready to find out where his team had disappeared to.

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff Bay_

"We can't just wait around here," Owen groaned, standing up from where we had all sat down on Cardiff Bay, looking out at the water. "We need to go back to one of the places where we fell through the rift in case it opens back up."

"But we don't know when we fell through, or even if we fell through," Gwen paused, looking up at her colleague.

"No, but if we go back to one of the places, we have more of a chance of finding out," Toshiko began to explain. "There is nothing we can do. Owen's right. We have to just go back to one of the places where we fell through in the hope that Ianto and Jack realise what's happened and open the rift back up - just like you guys did when me and Jack ended up in 1941."

"So this thing happens regularly?" I asked.

"You'd be surprised," Owen replied.

"Well, presuming we all fell through the rift, we all fell through whilst at our own homes," I observed. "Why don't we all go back to one of our homes?"

"We can't go back to my house as the street was close to ruins when I left," Gwen responded.

"Same with mine," Toshiko added.

"There is always mine," I suggested.

"No," Owen announced. "We can't go back to yours. It'd take us all day to walk there and we need to be there as soon as possible in case the rift opens up. And I don't suppose you have the 1940 currency to be able to pay for a taxi - that is if they even have taxis in 1940 Cardiff. We need to go back to mine."

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

Taking over Toshiko's workstation in her absence, Ianto was searching around the software, monitoring the rift activity in the period since Gwen, Owen, Toshiko and Sammy were last in the Hub - last night. A graph on the screen displayed the usual readings. Ianto sighed as he realised there wasn't anything abnormal with the readings at first glance. Sinking back into the chair, he looked around the Hub.

"What would you do, Tosh?" he muttered to himself as he saw Toshiko's glasses lying on the desktop.

A few more moments of looking back up at the screen passed before Ianto lunged towards the screen to get a closer perspective of it. Focusing on one reading, he realised there was a slight negative reading - unusual as the usual readings were all positive. Locating the negative readings on a map of Cardiff, he paused before shouting Jack.

"What've you found?" Jack asked, rushing over to Ianto's side as Ianto continued to closely examine the rift's negative activity in four particular regions of Cardiff.

"Look," Ianto instructed, shoving the map of Cardiff that he had annotated to show the locations of the rift's activity. "There was four negative readings of rift activity this morning at 7.35am."

"So the rift is splitting?" Jack asked.

"No, but look at where they happened."

Jack looked back down at the map. "Their houses."

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff City Centre_

Trooping through the streets of Cardiff towards Owen's apartment, I had never felt so out of place in my entire life. Thinking about it, my New York Yankees hoodie and black skinny jeans with black converse probably wasn't my best outfit choice when I had been magically transported back to 1940, but I wasn't too bothered about what I was wearing this morning when I found out I had been taken sixty seven years back in the past and when German planes were dropping bombs over my head. To say the city had been devastated by bombings just hours ago, the city was calm - people were helping to rebuild their lives and other people's lives in their community. 2000s community spirit differed in many ways to 1940 community spirit - I was lucky if I even got a 'hello' from my neighbour as we coincidentally walked out of our houses at the same time in the morning to make our journeys to work.

"What happens if we can't get back?" I asked. "What happens if it isn't the rift? What if Jack and Ianto can't find out where we are?"

"We'll deal with that if it comes to it," Gwen smiled, trying to reassure me as she put her arm around my shoulders.

I nodded.

Finally reaching the estate where Owen's apartment block was situated, he stopped in the middle of the road. "Something is different," he uttered. "Something is definitely different."

I watched as he continued down the street, looking around in confusion.

"Owen, what is it?" Toshiko queried. "What's wrong?"

"It's gone."

"What?"

I looked at Toshiko and Gwen in confusion before we all looked at Owen, who looked as puzzled as we were.

"My apartment.. The apartment block - it should be here."

Owen looked across from where we were stood in the middle of the cobbled road to a building. Bolting across the road, Owen began to examine the building.

"It seems like some sort of dance hall," I remarked.

"Can I help you?" a voice asked from behind up.

Startled a little, we all turned around to be greeted by a little old lady. Flashing a warm smile to us, the old woman scurried past us to stand in front of the building.

"Um," Gwen stuttered slightly, trying to think of a reason as to why we were investigating the building.

I interrupted before the little old lady became suspicious and accused us of being German spies or something. "We got given this address by a friend of ours and we were just wondering what it is."

"Oh, that will be for the dance tonight," the old woman explained.

"Yeah," I smiled. "Is this the dance hall?"

"it is, dear," she clarified. "You aren't from around here, are you?"

"Not really," I responded. "Thank-you for your help."

"You're welcome," the old woman smiled again before she began to unlock the huge wooden door that was padlocked in front of us.

"Our friend is a bit useless and didn't mention what time the dance started," Owen said, putting on a fake laugh that made him sound sophisticated and like an aristocrat. "Would you mind telling us what time the dance starts?"

"It's six, dear," she answered before disappearing inside the building, locking it after her.

"Looks like we're going to a dance," Toshiko smiled.

I was surprised to see that Toshiko looked pretty happy with the situation - I didn't have her down for a 'dance' sort of woman. But then again, I didn't really have Toshiko down as any sort of woman. Since the moment I first met her - well, second since I could vaguely remember the first encounter with her, she only talked about work and stuff related to Torchwood. I knew Gwen was engaged to her long-term boyfriend, Rhys, but that was all I knew about my team mates. They all seemed to keep themselves to themselves - I suppose this job was that demanding that they didn't really have time for anything else. I'd only been working here for a week now and Torchwood had seemed to take over my entire life. I hardly saw my family. I rarely spoke to my friends. I was lucky to get seven hours sleep on a night time. I was always on alert for the next alien attack. But I wouldn't change a thing about the job.

"Looks like we need to go shopping for clothes first," Gwen added, looking at all our outfits that generally consisted of black and denim - something that hadn't even made its big appearance in Europe yet. "We can't go to a 1940 dance wearing these outfits. We need to fit in."

"Just one problem," Owen paused as we began to walk back down the road to the high street in search of a clothes shop. "We have no money."

"No but we have this," Gwen grinned as she pulled out a little tablet from her jeans pocket - an amnesia pill.

"You beauty," Owen laughed, grabbing hold of Gwen's head and kissing her forehead.

Making our way into a clothes shop - well, we presumed it was a clothes shop as it had a 1940s style dress on display in the window behind the paper taped X, we began to look around at all the fashion. Isobelle, the budding fashionista that she was, would have had a field day in this shop with the vintage designs. Apart from the wireless in the corner of the shop that was playing quietly swing music away to itself, the shop was quiet. Owen pressed the bell constantly on the counter as I looked around at the dresses which hung up on one side of the shop's wall. After a few moments, a middle-aged woman walked out of the back room and into the shop, smiling at us.

"How may I help you?" she asked.

I sighed a discrete sigh of relief - at least we weren't going to be drugging an elderly woman. I couldn't bare that.

"We're looking for outfits for a dance," Gwen replied.

"Well, you've come to the right place," the woman announced, squeezing through the gap in between the counter and the display of suits to help us look for outfits.

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

Striding into Jack's office, Ianto set down two pieces of paper on the desk in front of where Jack was sat as he was trying to get the comms to work.

"What's this?" Jack asked Ianto, looking up from the sheets of paper.

"It's the rift activity from when Owen, Tosh, Sammy and Gwen went missing off the tracker," Ianto explained. "It's confirmed that they have been taken by the rift but we just need to know where they've been taken to."

"Explains why the comms haven't been working," Jack sighed, putting the useless ear pieces on the desk beside the sheets of paper that illustrated the rift activity graphs.

"I've ran the computer to cross-reference the rift activity at that precise moment in time with the rift activity of that moment in time through out history but that could take a couple of hours at least," Ianto added. "I'm also searching through the archives to see if there is any mention of them in different time periods but so far, I've had no luck."

"Good work, Ianto," Jack commented as he stood up and grabbed a file from beneath his desk. "I'll have a look in here for any clues to their whereabouts."

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff Clothes Shop_

"Would you like a cup of tea?" the woman asked us as we browsed through the dresses on the rack.

"That would be lovely," she smiled. "I'll come give you a hand."

As Gwen followed the woman into the back of the shop, she looked over her shoulder at us and nodded her head. With Owen disappearing into one of the changing rooms with a suit, Toshiko made her way over to where I was stood by the dresses.

"They're so beautiful, aren't they?" she asked, admiring one dress in particular.

After I noticed that she was eyeing up one of the dresses in my hand, I held it up to her petite figure. "Try it on," I suggested. "It'll suit you more than it'll suit me. Go on."

"Oh, I don't know," she hesitated.

"Tosh, you should have more confidence in yourself," I smiled. "You're a beautiful woman. Any guy would be lucky to have you."

"You really think so?" she asked, taken back a little by my compliment.

"Are you kidding me?" I laughed. "You're beautiful. You're intelligent. You're fearless. What guy wouldn't want that?"

Reluctantly, she took the dress from my grasp and smiled at me. "Thank-you," she replied.

"Go," I ushered, pointing to the free changing room.

I watched Toshiko saunter into the changing room, holding the dress proudly in her hand as she continued to admire it. Left alone with all the dresses, I sighed to myself. This being stuck in wartime Cardiff malarky wasn't so bad after all.

"Sammy!" I heard Gwen's voice call from the back room adjacent to the shop. In a rush, I walked into the back room to find Gwen holding onto the shop keeper that was collapsed in her arms. "I put the pill in her drink. As soon as she took a sip of it, she collapsed."

Kneeling down by the woman's motionless body, I felt for a pulse.

"She's fine," I smiled. "Just unconscious. The sedative must have reacted more with 1940 tea than it does with our tea."

"Don't suppose you could help me move her?" Gwen asked.

With Gwen holding one of the woman's arms, I grabbed hold of the other and we slowly shuffled her across the room. After plonking her down on an empty chair beside a table, Gwen and I retreated back into the main part of the shop to find Owen waiting for us. "Well, I'm sorted."

"Don't you look smart," I teased, looking at Owen in a white tuxedo with a black dickie bow.

"Very handsome," Gwen smiled.

As Gwen helped redo Owen's badly tied dickie bow and Toshiko was still in the changing room, I stood in the middle of the shop, silently debating with myself over what dress to pick for tonight's dance. Eventually, I picked up one dress and walked into the changing room with it. Hanging it up on the hanging rail, I yanked the curtain across and began to take my hoodie off. As soon as I had the dress on, I fell in love with it. The blue polka dot pattern complemented my slightly tanned complexion and the halter neck design with white waist belt made me feel so feminine. Looking at my reflection in the dusty mirror that was in the corner of the changing cubicle, I began to forget that I was actually from 2007 - I felt as if I was a woman living in the 1940s, not just stuck here temporarily. Stuffing my phone into my bra, I rolled my clothes up into a ball and carried them out into the shop. As I walked out, I saw Toshiko was stood nervously talking to Owen.

"See, I told you that you'd look amazing in that," I grinned to Toshiko.

"You think so?" she asked, looking down at her floral tea dress with a look of uncertainty on her face as I borrowed a pair of white open toe heels from the display and slipped them on.

"Yes! Doesn't she, Owen?"

I looked at Owen, waiting for him to back me up. "Yeah," he said, clearing his throat. "Um.. you both look amazing."

Toshiko began to blush as Gwen made her entrance from the other changing room in a black halter neck dress that had a black collar.

"Torchwood had a 1940s makeover," she laughed, grabbing a pair of black stilettos that were in the shop's window display. "My God, Sammy. That dress."

"It's perfect, isn't it?" I smiled, twirling slightly so the skirt of the dress puffed out a bit.

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

"How long has it been now?" Jack asked as both him and Ianto stared at the computer screen in hope that the computer would have finished analysing the results.

"Three hours, twenty minutes and forty-seven seconds," Ianto replied. "Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty.."

Jack interrupted his countdown. "This is why I could never have an office job," he sighed. "Too much waiting around."

"No," Ianto argued. "You just like shooting your gun and saying long words."

"Nothing wrong with long words," Jack declared. "They make it more exciting."

"Antidisestablishmentarianism," Ianto announced.

* * *

_1940 - Cardiff City Centre_

Walking up the street, trying ever so hard to not get my heels stuck in-between the cobbles on the road, I followed Gwen and Toshiko as they talked about the endless possibilities of what could go wrong with us being stuck in 1940.

"Girls, why don't we forget about being stuck here and just enjoy it?" Owen suggested.

I was surprised by his suggestion. For once, it was something positive. "Owen's right," I smiled as I caught up with them. "How many people from 2007 say that they've attended a legitimate wartime dance?"

"I bet Jack and Ianto haven't even realised we've gone missing yet," Toshiko sighed as we made our way up the steps to the dance hall's entrance.

"Probably too busy making use of all the free time and no interruptions," Gwen sniggered.

"Wait, they're.." I paused as I looked around, realising there was people around us. Lowering the volume of my voice, I continued to speak. "They're gay?"

Owen looked at me and laughed. "Sammy, you really didn't think Jack was straight, did you?"

"I.. I.." I stuttered. I didn't know what to think of Jack. "I don't know actually. He just came across as a ladies man, I suppose."

"That's the thing about Jack," Toshiko paused as a giggling couple rushed past us. "He doesn't really have a preference - if you know what I mean."

I nodded. As I thought about it, it all slowly started to make sense. He flirted with everything - it would explain a lot.

Walking into the dance hall, I was taken back a little by how amazing the room looked. At one end of the room was a swing band set up on the stage, playing jazz, swing and big band music to the many dancing couples that filled the floor. It didn't seem like the same place that was being bombed the night previously. Union Flags were displayed on every wall proudly and bunting of the Union Flag was hung wall-to-wall above the dancers. The sound of laughter and music filled the atmosphere. As soon as you walked into the room, you were hit with this sudden buzz of energy and happiness along with a feeling of patriotic pride. Gwen went off in search of a bar, leaving Toshiko, Owen and I in the dance hall.

"My lady," Owen smiled as he offered his hand to me, placing his other hand behind his back, as if he was pretending to be courteous. "May I have this dance?"

Just as I was about to take his hand, I looked over at Toshiko, who was stood beside me, looking disappointed. "Why don't you dance with Tosh?" I suggested, taking hold of Owen's hand and offering it to Toshiko instead.

"Come on, Tosh," Owen sighed.

Toshiko's face lit up as she took hold of Owen's hand and he led her into the middle of all the dancing couples. I smiled as I watched them rock together in time to the music - Owen looking a little bored but Toshiko looking like she was on top of the world.

"How come I haven't seen you here before?" a voice from behind me asked.

Turning around, I saw a military man stood behind me, looking directly into my eyes with a warm smile across his face. I had to admit, he was pretty gorgeous. Dark brown hair was swooped across the top of his head, held in place with gel - and lots of it. His eyes seemed to twinkle in the light as he looked at me.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered seeing someone as stunning as you here before," the man smiled, making me blush slightly. "Care to dance?"

The stranger held out his hand in my direction, waiting for me to take hold of it. Gracefully grasping hold of his hand, I was led onto the dance floor, still mesmerised by the man's beauty. Clasping hold of my hand, the man wrapped his other arm around my waist and brought me closer in his hold. My heart felt as if it skipped a beat.

"I'm George," he introduced.

"Sammy," I smiled.

"So, Sammy," George said as he continued to look into my eyes. "You're not from around here, are you?"

I could feel myself getting lost in his beautiful brown eyes. Gently shaking my head, I brought myself back to 1940 reality. "No," I lied. I couldn't exactly tell this man, who was practically a stranger, that I was actually from sixty years in the future and that I just so happened to slip back in time because I work at an agency that hunts down aliens. "I'm from London."

"London?" he asked, seeming surprised. "The big capital. Haven't been there for years."

I smiled as we carried on to dance together, swaying in time to the music. Looking across over George's shoulder, I saw Toshiko and Owen, still dancing together. Owen was looking at me as I danced with George, rolling his eyes as he realised I was looking back at him. Toshiko, on the other hand, looked like she had been drugged and was in the middle of hallucinating - smiling from ear-to-ear like a Cheshire cat.

"So George, how come you haven't been deployed to the front line yet?" I asked George, removing my concentration from Owen and Toshiko.

"They're sending me out next week," he sighed.

"Oh," I paused. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he smiled, spinning me around before taking back our original dance position. "It's my duty, right? Fight for our country and all."

I couldn't help but admire his bravery and courage. If that was me, I'd be crying and demanding for my mum. "I guess you've just gotta enjoy every second before you go out there," I said.

"And that's exactly what I intend to do," he replied, not taking his eye contact from my eyes.

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

As Ianto and Jack reemerged from Jack's office - Ianto looking very sheepish and Jack looking very satisfied with himself, Toshiko's computer began to bleep. Rushing over, Ianto examined the results that appeared on the screen.

"It's finished," he smiled to Jack.

"Perfect timing," Jack slyly grinned.

Rolling his eyes, Ianto sat down on the seat at Toshiko's workstation and began to analyse the data.

"What does it say?" Jack asked, tucking his shirt into his trousers before he joined Ianto at Toshiko's computer.

"They're in 1940."

"1940?" Jack questioned.

"Look, the rift activity this morning when they went missing corresponds with the rift activity recorded in 1940. I've even cross-referenced it with the readings in all four of their locations and it says the same thing - both today and in 1940."

"2nd August 1940," Jack read from the data sheet.

"But it doesn't explain why they've been taken back to 1940," Ianto sighed. "And why didn't we get taken back to 1940 too?"

"The rift must have splintered in four locations, taking those with close connections with rift activity," Jack proposed.

* * *

_1940 - Dance Hall_

Walking across the dance hall towards the bathrooms, I smiled to myself. I was quite enjoying this evening, even if we weren't supposed to be here. The history textbooks in school didn't mention anything about how much fun the wartime spirit could be. I hadn't had a good night like this in ages.

As I walked down the empty corridor towards the bathrooms, I felt as if someone was following me. Turning around, I saw Owen not far behind.

"Are you following me, Doctor Harper?" I laughed, stopping so he could catch up with me.

"I just wanted to warn you."

"About what?" I asked, getting slightly confused as to what I needed 'warning' about.

"Don't get too involved with that guy," Owen said in a serious tone. "We don't belong here. We shouldn't really be mixing with people that belong in 1940. Two time eras shouldn't collide."

"Leave it out," I smiled. "It's just a bit of fun."

"I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Why?" I questioned. "Getting jealous?"

"Don't be stupid," he replied.

"Sammy, is everything alright here?" George asked as he appeared in the corridor.

"It's fine," Owen replied hastily.

"Sorry, I asked Sammy, not you."

"Yeah, it's fine," I smiled. "This is just Owen, my friend."

George walked towards me, putting his hand on my shoulder as he stood behind me.

"You go back in there and enjoy yourself," I smiled, tapping George's hand that rested on my shoulder gently. "I won't be too long. Just going to freshen up a bit."

"Okay," George sighed before he kissed me on my cheek and paced up the corridor and through the doors into the main hall.

Left in silence again, Owen looked at me. "Just be careful, Sammy. You're new to this whole travelling thing. I wouldn't want to see you get hurt because, trust me, you will."

"Fuck sake, Owen. I know what I'm doing," I groaned. "Thanks for looking out for me, but I don't need looking after. Especially by you."

"Okay," Owen said, defeated.

* * *

_2007 - The Hub_

"We need to use the rift manipulator," Ianto concluded. "I know what happened after the last time we used it but we can't leave them back in 1940. We need them here. This would have been solved in seconds if Tosh was here and you know it."

"But opening the rift could cause it to splinter every more, causing more damage than it did last time."

"You really want to leave them stuck in 1940, do you?" Ianto argued.

"No but.."

Ianto cut Jack off. "But its the only way we're gonna manage to get them back."

"Ianto, we can't open the rift. It's too dangerous. I forbid it. If you open it, I.."

"You'll what?"

Jack didn't answer.

"That's what I thought," Ianto argued. "Look, Jack, it's the only way. Unless you've got a better way of getting our team back from 1940, then I'm gonna open the rift and nothing will stop me."

Picking up his gun from the side, Ianto loaded it and pointed it at Jack - his trembling finger on the trigger.

"You wouldn't," Jack laughed, calling Ianto's bluff.

Pulling back the trigger, Ianto stood motionless as he watched the bullet rip through the air in front of him as it made its way towards Jack. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. As soon as the bullet hit Jack's chest, ripping through his shirt and body, he collapsed onto the floor.

"What the fuck happened here?" a voice exclaimed from behind where Ianto was stood, still holding the gun directly in front of him as he stared at Jack's lifeless body that was sprawled on the ground.

Ianto turned around - his eyes filled with tears - to see the rest of his team in the middle of the Hub.

"How did you get back?" Ianto asked. "I hadn't even opened the rift up."

"You shot Jack?" I asked, startled. I stood still for a moment before I rushed across the room to try and save Jack. Feeling for a pulse, I began to panic. "You've killed him! He's dead!"

"No, wait a minute," Owen said.

"But how did you get back?" Ianto asked.

"We thought you opened the rift?" Toshiko paused as she tapped around on her computer's keyboard.

"No."

"Uh, hello," I shouted, looking up from Jack's body in confusion. Why did they all act so casual? Jack was dead. I had Jack's blood all over my hands yet nobody seemed to be taking the blindest bit of notice of me, or Jack's mutilated body for that matter.

"That's a pretty dress. Really brings out your eyes."

Looking down, I saw Jack laid in a pool of blood, smiling up at me. "But.. But.. I.. I.. You didn't have a pulse. You were dead. You got.." I looked at his shirt to find that the bullet wound had disappeared. The only evidence left to even suggest Jack got shot was the blood on my hands and the blood on the floor.

"Can't die," Jack announced as he got up off the floor and brushed himself down as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Sorry about that, looks like I shot you for no reason," Ianto apologised.

"Seems like the rift was just correcting its mistakes," Toshiko claimed as she studied the data on her computer screen.

"But how can't you die?" I asked, still confused as to what had just happened. I wasn't even bothered about the rift right now. "I saw you get shot. You were dead. You didn't have a pulse."

"Sammy, I'll explain it to you another day but for now, just believe me when I say that I can't die."

Reluctantly, I nodded and agreed to let it drop. Although I agreed to let it drop, that didn't stop me wondering a million and one questions silently to myself.

The questions that were racing around my head soon came to an end when I looked up at the conference room.

"Oh, fucking hell," Owen groaned as he looked up and realised what I was looking at.

"Who's that?" Jack asked, looking as confused as I did when I saw Jack resurrect from the dead.

"He must have followed you back through the rift," Gwen said.

"That's George," I paused, looking up in confusion at a dazed George.


End file.
